Miller betwenn hell and dawn

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-7526-6249-8
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 302 Seiten

Piet Höller volunteered for service in the Wehrmacht in Germany during World War II. When he joined the army, he had a very specific goal. His service should be far behind the front lines, far from the infernal bloodshed of the battlefields. The plan works for a long time. He is serving in occupied France and has no contact with combat operations. Until a fateful letter lets everything get out of hand. His journey will take him to Africa and far beyond his personal borders.

James Miller was born in 1986 in Germany, in the Ruhr area. Even at school he developed an enthusiasm for writing. Initially, they were short stories. In 2020 he finally realized his first novel.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Miller, James

Leseproben

I. Isles les Villenoy


His heart was racing and the expression on his face looked like someone had rammed a dagger into his ribs. There he stood now, in November 1940, in the middle of France. He was twenty-one years old and he was actually convinced that the war in France was over for him. The newspapers and reports on the radio were full of news about victorious units and rapid advances in all regions and on all front lines, enemies who were fleeing and the superiority of German weapons technology.
Even the air raids by the British on industrial plants did not give them any relief and so in the end the British only suffered considerable losses.
The hasty withdrawal and the subsequent surrender of the French armed forces gave Piet the impression that no one could stop the German army. In the first few days of his mission he saw how difficult it was when the front line was advancing faster than the supply was coming. So it indicated everything for everyone to be home again by the end of the year. The question of who was responsible for the war did not even arise for him. You were attacked in Poland, or should be attacked. He wasn't that specific. In any case, the newspapers and radio broadcasts reported that all of this only served to defend the homeland.
It had become very convenient for him in France. His unit was stationed about fifty kilometers from Paris.
He liked the occasional trips to this metropolis, even if they always required a little organizational talent.
Getting to Paris and, above all, back on time was not always that easy. Since the German invasion of France, the French railroad had lost even more of its reliability. There was also little noticeable of the German punctuality. This only worked with the field post. A joke that people liked to tell themselves during basic training, but had meanwhile turned out to be reality. Absurdly, most of the mail came by train. Piet's personal goal after his stay in France was to get back to his village in Schleswig-Holstein unscathed. Ideally, even without having to shed blood yourself. Of course, of course, without shedding his own blood. The dislike of the French was often palpable, but a lot of the girls here were into uniforms and he liked that. It was tolerable that old men would spit at his feet from time to time or whisper insults in French. A girl wasn't waiting for him at home and so he made the most of his freedom. Even if fraternizing with the enemy's wives was forbidden. In his unit, like so many other things, it wasn't taken that seriously.
He liked a local girl, but had been annoyed for years that he had never found the courage to speak to her and so his school crush ended up marrying Piet's direct neighbors. In this case, fate was not very good for him. He had to watch them turtle very often. Now of course he could enjoy the evenings and didn't have to worry. He didn’t have to see the pecker that his Else had uncomfortable at the moment either. One more reason to enjoy the evenings here. He just couldn't allow himself to be caught by bourgeois officers who, despite all their freedoms, did exist here. France had made him a man. He gained his first experience in a brothel in Paris. Like many other soldiers. Here the old saying “only war makes you a man” is true again. He had heard this often in his basic training, now he knew what it meant.
But now that ... It should go to Greece for him and his unit. New location, new commander in chief. Probably then the looseness was over. Ok, the weather was better in Greece, but what the heck do you want? He could speak a few words in French, but not in Greek. He had heard of Athens, of the Acropolis. He knew next to nothing about Greece and the Greeks. The ancient Greeks were often seen as a symbol of strategy and courage to fight. But how many more were there? Were these stories true at all? No matter. This letter didn't fit into his plan at all. Would they be accepted there just as they were in Paris? Did they even want to have them in Greece? Were they allies or were they occupiers there? Or was Greece a battlefield that he just hadn't read or heard about? Rumors of an imminent invasion of Africa had been around for a long time. Also through Rommel, to whom his troops should be affiliated. Rommel was an old-school soldier and did not tolerate abrasive discipline. In his current unit, the soldier's life was rather relaxed and minor errors were conscientiously overlooked. There was only very seldom any trace of the German discipline that was often propagated.
The Italians had been battling the English for a year in the desert of Africa, and less successfully. Even if the flow of information about it was very vague, it was an open secret that Italy would not do without German help. The equipment was out of date, the strategists of the Italians seemed mercilessly overwhelmed with their tasks. Where did he get in? In 1939, in adolescent madness, he volunteered. The wave of exuberant patriotism that swept through the whole country had induced him to volunteer. The school's influence also contributed to this.
All the boys from his town volunteered, he couldn't pinch there. Even if he was sure that no one had thought about the possible consequences of the war effort. He, he had to admit it, didn't either. He didn't want to disappoint his father either. He was already doing his service in the last great war and caught a bullet in his left thigh. He saw it as his duty to follow his father's example. Piet's father saw in Hitler a savior, which the country had long been missing. Someone who wouldn't burn them senselessly at the front like the Kaiser had done. He could never really justify this, but his father's words always carried Piet weight.
His grandpa, in turn, had warned him clearly. He also fought in the last great war and was hit in the shoulder somewhere here in France. He'd never told him where exactly. The injury was still limiting him today. Grandpa didn't think much of Hitler, and he made no secret of it - at least behind closed doors. These completely different positions often caused stress at the dining table at home.
Before he left, Piet lived with his parents and grandparents on his father's side on a small farm.
Politics didn't really matter to Piet. He saw it as his duty to contribute to this war and to make his father proud. The fact that both parties were shot was suppressed by Piet in his considerations.
Every day he heard in school and read in the newspapers that half the world was just waiting to destroy his homeland, how could he otherwise? It would be the work of a coward not to oppose the enemies of his homeland or at least to help so that others can easily throw themselves against the enemy.
He never ended up in Poland, for which he was very grateful. He heard a lot of cruel stories from Poland, besides the Russians were standing there in front of the door and how long the peace with these obscure communists would last, nobody really knew. He was initially to be trained as a reporter and radio operator, but then began training as a paramedic immediately after completing his basic training. However, he could not acquire more than basic knowledge there. His skills were recognized too quickly by the rifle and the medical training was broken off.
His skills at the rifle range quickly brought him into discussion as a potential sniper. So far, however, he has successfully avoided it. In the end, his superiors thought he was too soft to be used as a sniper. Sometimes too impatient. They didn't have the time to make a tough guy out of him. Perhaps, on closer inspection, they no longer saw the potential in him.
His goal remained to do his service somewhere behind the front. He never wanted blood on his hands; deep down he was perhaps a little pacifist after all. He found himself trapped in this dichotomy since the beginning of his training. The shooting made him friends, but not the idea of having to aim a gun at a person.
He wanted to make a difference, but not to end lives. He admitted to himself that this was a rather naive attitude for a war volunteer. But it was for a good cause. At least that was always what he was told. Little had he seen that made him doubt it. What could be greater than fighting for your family and your homeland? After all, the others were the bad ones. In the end, he managed to convince his superiors that he was good at tackling. That he is more likely to be someone who hauls boxes, loads trains and trucks. He was successful with it. The fact that he was now responsible for supplying the fighting units and that he was actually a warehouse worker in uniform was no less important to him. Without him there would be no bullets, no guns, no food or water in the front lines. Besides, where was the serious fighting in France? In fact, they mainly loaded material for the hospitals and the troop rest homes in which wounded soldiers from half of Europe were being cured.
So far, the blood on his hands has been avoided, to his full satisfaction.
He was involved in two small disputes. However, these took place with angry civilians, when a few bullets were fired over the head they quickly fled. There were no injuries on either side. The greatest evil was a bullet hole in a train wagon, or a window thrown in. This incident was never reported, so the civilians were spared possible acts of revenge and the officers spared a lot of paperwork. The French withdrew faster than the Wehrmacht could advance. That was the variant they were told. So it happened that the French were hardly taken seriously. The course of the First World War was forgotten by everyone. Especially its disastrous end. They hurried from victory to victory, and there was never any talk of setbacks. What could go wrong there? They would hardly see another fiasco like this....